Nintendo Created the Most Important Gaming Console of the Year. Here’s Why

With the Switch 2, Nintendo achieved the near impossible.

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By Tucker Bowe

Published December 26, 2025

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Upon launch, the original Switch did the unthinkable: it established sky-high expectations, then it surpassed them.

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Novel yet familiar, it felt like the love child between a Game Boy and Wii. Even more important, however, were the games.

Nintendo's Switch 2 has numerous hardware improvements over its predecessor, headlined by bigger display and magnetic Joy-Con controllers — Nintendo’s Switch 2 has numerous hardware improvements over its predecessor, headlined by bigger display and magnetic Joy-Con controllers.

From Super Mario Odyssey to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, some of the hottest titles in recent years have been Switch exclusives.

And let’s not forget The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom), the only Switch game to win the prestigious “Game of the Year” award.

How’s that for expectations?

The Joy-Con controllers magnetically snap into place, solving one of the most frustrating design issues with the original Switch.

Eight years on, the world finally got its hands on a true successor.

The Switch 2 has the same hybrid detachable design as the original, but it’s been refined, enhanced, and, in just about every way, perfected.

For starters, the second-generation console has a much bigger display, significantly faster processor and a lot of hardware improvements, headlined by larger Joy-Con controllers that magnetically clip into place.

The new Joy-Con controller can function as a mouse for certain games.

As for games, the Switch 2 launched alongside some absolute gems that can only be played on the new console, such as Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza.

The Switch 2's kickstand is made of metal, which is much sturdier than the original's plastic kickstand — The Switch 2’s kickstand is made of metal, which is much sturdier than the original’s plastic kickstand.

Sure, the Switch 2 is a bit pricer than the original — eight years of inflation and tariffs will do that. And the current catalog leans heavily on remastered versions of previously released classics.

But neither has slowed down demand one bit.

Already, over 10 million units of the console have been sold. That makes the Switch 2 the fastest-selling Nintendo console in history. And it’s only heating up.

New chapters in Nintendo’s best-selling game franchises (Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing and Pokémon) are inevitable. So, too, is this console’s dominance in the decade to come.